Roos has been kept small her whole life. First, when she was five years old, hiding under the floorboards to help her mother fake seances. Then, when she got older and began participating in these seances herself, she was kept underfed to appear younger and more delicate. But while her abusive mother kept her isolated, she was never alone. She had Ruth, her spirit companion. And despite Ruth sometimes possessed her body or drank her blood, they loved each other. Which was almost enough.
When Agnes attends a seance and Ruth/Roos (sharing a body) pretend to be her dead husband, Roos’s life is forever changed. Acting as her husband, she kisses Agnes. Roos hopes this woman will become a regular customer, but instead, Agnes offers her mother payment so that Roos will live with her as her companion. It turns out, they have a lot in common. But interspersed with the scenes of this new living arrangement—which also includes Agnes’s dying sister-in-law—are transcriptions of interviews with Roos after someone in the house is murdered and she’s found covered in blood.
I can’t resist a sapphic gothic novel, and this may be my new favourite. The interview transcripts remind you of the stakes and tension, but I was equally interested in the more subtle interpersonal drama between Roos, Agnes, and Agnes’s spiteful sister-in-law. While there’s clearly romantic tension between Roos and Agnes, Agnes is still mourning her husband—someone Roos is building up in her head as the perfect husband she could never live up to. Because Roos has been so isolated, she doesn’t know how to navigate this situation, and despite the best intentions, she is easily mislead into making terrible choices. Then there’s Ruth’s jealousy, now that it’s not just her and Roos against the world.
This is a love story, but maybe not in the way you’d expect. It’s not a capital R Romance novel. But it is a love story all the same. The complex relationships between all these main characters—living and dead—is what makes this such a compelling story, and I can’t wait to pick up Johanna Van Veen’s newest sapphic gothic, Blood On Her Tongue. And yet, I’m also considering whether I want to save it as a treat for next October. This was a perfect complement to another sapphic gothic novel I read this month: House of Beth by Kerry Cullen, which is another unexpected love story.
I’m so grateful for the increase in sapphic gothic novels published in the last year or so. It just might be my new favourite subgenre, and I will definitely be picking up whatever Johanna Van Veen writes next.
Content warnings: blood, abuse (parental and domestic), sexual assault, incest, mental illness
